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The Independent, 22 June 2017 |
Cara Chanteau |
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Verdi: Otello, Royal Opera House, London, 21. Juni 2017 |
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Otello, Royal Opera House, London, review: The hottest ticket this year
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Jonas Kaufmannn makes his debut as Otello in Covent Garden’s new production directed by Keith Warner |
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The hottest ticket this year is indubitably Jonas Kaufmannn’s debut as
Otello in Covent Garden’s new production directed by Keith Warner. Kaufmann
spoke of it beforehand with trepidation and excitement, while conductor
Pappano predicted it would take him to another level of artistry.
Boris Kudlička’s abstract monochrome set – two towering walls pointing
inwards with occasional screens suggesting Moorish latticing – underlines
Otello’s descent into darkness, except for Desdemona’s murder which takes
place on a brightly lit bed. This limited palette certainly focuses the
action and emphasises interiority, but struggles to encompass any wider
context, with the chorus effectively reduced to a bulk prop.
Bathed
in light is Italian soprano Maria Agresta as a wonderful Desdemona, a
soaring songbird, trusting, naïve and doomed, with Kai Rüütel an
accomplished foil in Emilia. Italian bartione Marco Vratogna makes the most
of the jagged, juddering, incomplete phrasing that Verdi invented for his
baleful Iago, while Kaufmann traces Otello’s slow crucifixion and
vertiginous decent into paranoia and suspicion with growing conviction,
unleashing a darker deeper timbre. Almost too conflicted at the outset, his
performance blooms gradually. As always, Pappano’s contribution in the pit
is a thing of wonder, with no detail too trifling in to be given full weight
in his masterful sweep of the whole.
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